Dick's Final Moments

Dick took his last breath on November 28, 2010.  He weighed less than 100 pounds at the end, which was next to nothing for a 6' man who had weighed 210 pounds when he was diagnosed nearly 7 years earlier.  It had been a long, slow march to this moment.

Although I had known for seven years that this day would come, still I was not really ready.  I felt like I'd been caught off-guard when the hospice nurse told me a couple weeks earlier that it really looked like the end this time.  Kevin and I spent those last two weeks talking to him, telling him that we would be okay, that we would take care of each other, and that he could go when he felt ready.  That last weekend, we barely left his side.  I brought my newspaper and sat on the bed next to his.  I played music for him, some of my most favorite, soothing songs, especially "Never Alone."  That song just spoke to me and I think it did for him too.  I would put my phone next to his ear and put on the song for him to hear.  I wanted him to know that he would never be alone, that no matter where he was about to go, I would always be there, but also I was reassuring myself that his leaving was not really leaving me alone.

That evening, about 6, I leaned over and whispered to him that I was going to go home to make dinner for Kevin and me.  I told him that, if he was ready to go, he did not need to wait for me to come back.  And then I realized that he might not understand what we all meant by "ready to go."  Because he had long ago lost the ability to understand abstract concepts, he might think we were all crazy thinking he was going to go anywhere, since his legs hadn't worked for at least 18 months!  So I said to him, "When you are ready to join your parents and Aunt Dot in heaven, just hold your breath for a second and you will find you are there with them.  It won't hurt and you will be okay.  You can go there and you can wait for me to join you someday.  We love you now and forever."

Ten minutes later, as I walked into my house to fix dinner, I got a call from the hospice nurse that I should come back to the nursing home, that he was gone.